Field of the Present Invention
The present invention relates to a method of operating autonomous vehicles.
Background Concerning the Need for the Current Invention
Use of vehicles requires parking them whenever they are not being loaded, unloaded or moved between locations. The cost of parking spaces is substantial especially in high-density built up areas, and efficiency in use of space is of economic importance. For many activities, availability of sufficient parking space is the critical factor in determining the feasibility of an access strategy.
A vehicle occupying a nominal space of 16×8 feet theoretically occupies 128 square feet of space, and an area of an acre would hold 340 vehicles tightly packed in such spaces. Realistic estimates of the number of vehicles that can park in an acre are less than half of that number in the neighborhood of 150 vehicles. This is because of the need for space for drivers to enter and exit the vehicles and for the vehicles to enter and exit the parking spaces.
It is usually necessary in parking vehicles to be able to access or extract any vehicle at random. If vehicles are parked bumper to bumper in close columns, it is necessary to move other vehicles to access the desired vehicle. This is costly in terms of access delay and in terms of the time and effort necessary. Even parking two rows of cars tightly against a wall is done only when the need is great and the expense of additional space is large.
There are situations where random access is not needed. For example, when cars are being loaded onto a ship or ferry to cross a river or an ocean they are often tightly packed. It may even not be possible for a person to revisit a vehicle to recover a forgotten item until the boat is unloaded vehicle by vehicle after arrival at a destination. In these situations, the deck space of the vessel is extremely valuable, and the need for sequential and coordinated loading and unloading is justified. The time expended by drivers and by vessel crew in directing drivers is substantial.
Thus, closely packing vehicles is normally avoided to provide access with a reasonable delay and with reasonable effort on the part of drivers.
Remotely controlled vehicles which require no driver in the vehicle and fully or partially autonomous vehicles which require no driver at all are now known technology and are entering the marketplace. Simultaneous operation of several or many of these vehicles is feasible in a way that it is not for human driven vehicles. The Current Inventive Concept concerns methods for using simultaneous operation of multiple vehicles to perform the access, entrance and exit of vehicles in closely packed arrays.
Technologies Related to Embodiments of the Current Inventive Concept
The technologies listed in this section are well known to practitioners of their respective arts; but any one technology may not be known to a practitioner of the art of another technology. They are useful and are employed in the implementation of specific embodiments of the Current Inventive Concept. They are pointed out here to be available in that implementation.
Remotely controlled model vehicles are widely used by hobbyists. They have as many dimensions of control as is desired by the user based on budget considerations. They are typically used by direct observation by a remote driver. Some have video links to give information to the user for driving or simply for observation.
Tracked or guided autonomous vehicles are used in industrial situations. They may follow various guidance methods with fixed guidance devices in their paths. They may accept dynamic orders for destinations from central controllers.
Autonomous vehicles for use on public roads are at the prototype stage of development. They use a rich array of sensors and complex algorithms to control their paths. They have self-contained computers to implement their functions.
Communication links to vehicles of many kinds are commonplace. They may set destinations by methods as simple as calling the cell phone of a driver to tell that driver where the vehicle should go. Other links monitor conditions.